Angoori Kesari Gulab Jamuns … most delicious, surprisingly easy and so fuss free, you’ll wonder why you never made these before! I’ve been making them for years and then I fell off my perch for a bit. The other day, clearing my pantry, I fund a bag of milk powder and before I knew it, we had the most delicious gulab jamuns.
What are gulab jamuns you might wonder? Some passionately call them Indian’s national dessert and they are truly loved across the subcontinent. They are a sweetmeat or mithai popular across the region and are usually made of khoya {milk solids}, plain flour and a leavening agent such as baking powder. They are basically deep fried dough balls that are dunked after frying into a warm rose flavoured sugar syrup and gently swell up absorbing the syrup and becoming soft and delicious. Plump too!
That’s the gist and there are several recipes to get there. Different regions have their own recipes and often ingredients differ as well. I make them with khoya/mawa {a local reduction of milk to give milk solids} as I did in the eggless baked Gulab Jamun Cheesecake, and with milk powder like my mother used to years ago.
Both work pretty well but I like the milk powder recipe better because the ingredients are easier to source and more predictable. The khoya/mawa can sometimes differ across brands and where you buy it from, is sensitive to temperature too.
I like to make the smaller gulab jamuns like these, called angoori gulab jamuns, angoor referring to grapes. These are much smaller than the normal gulab jamuns that you get at mithai shops and somehow feel a little more guilt free!
You can find more INDIAN INSPIRED recipes here!
You can find recipes with SAFFRON here.
Do tag me on Instagram at Passionate About Baking if you make this, or any other recipe from the blog. I’d love to see it!
Angoori Kesari Gulab Jamuns
Ingredients
Saffron sugar syrup
- 280 g sugar
- 2 cups water
- 5 green cardamom choti elaichi
- Saffron strands
- 1/2 lime juice of
Dough balls
- 100 g milk powder
- 60 g plain flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 25 g clarified butter/ghee
- 50-55 g saffron infused milk infused overnight
Oil/ghee for deep frying
Instructions
Saffron sugar syrup
- Make the syrup first and keep it warm.
- Add the sugar, water, green cardamom, saffron strands and rose essence to a sauce pan and simmer gently until you get a sticky syrup but NOT a thick one string syrup. If the syrup feels sticky between your finger tips, it’s good to go. If the syrup gets too thick, the dough balls won’t be able to absorb it.
- Keep the syrup warm while you make the dough.
Dough balls
- Place the milk powder, plain flour, baking powder, ghee and 45g of the saffron infused milk in the jar of a hand blender. Process until you get a soft dough which comes together smoothly and pulls away from the sides. Add more saffron milk, a tsp at a time, if you need more to get a soft smooth dough.
- You can even mix this together an a biwl, gradually adding the saafron infused milk and knead it, but the hand blender does a quicker, neater job.
- Divide the dough into 18-20 grape sized small portions, bringing the dough together tightly by closing your hand into a tight fist, then rolling them while applying pressure to get neat, smooth little dough balls. They might look tiny, but they almost double in size after soaking in the syrup.
- Heat the oil/ghee over a low medium flame until it’s hot but not smoking.
- To check the consistency of the dough and heat of the oil, it's best to put one dough ball into the oil gently and deep fry it to check if the ball holds and doesn't split etc.
- Once that is done, then fry the dough balls in one batch or two, depending on the size of the wok and quanitiy of oil.
- Fry over a low medium flame, turning the balls with a slotted spoon often to get an even golden brown colour.
- Once done, remove the balls to a deep dish and immediately pour over the warm saffron sugar syrup. Cover and leave the balls to absorb the syrup. It should take 3-4 hours.
- Serve warm, at room temperature or chilled.
- Note: You can add 1/4 to 1/2 tsp of rose essence to the dough if you like.
